Route to chaos in a coupled microresonator system with gain and loss

Abstract: We consider chaotic dynamics of a system of two coupled ring resonators with a linear gain and a nonlinear absorption. Such a structure can be implemented in various settings including microresonator nanostructures, polariton condensates, optical waveguides or atomic Bose-Einstein condensates of ultra-cold atoms placed in a circular-shaped trap. From the theoretical point of view this system is attractive due to its modulational instability and rich structure, including various types of spontaneous symmetry breaking, period doubling bifurcations, eventually leading to chaotic regime. It is described by set of partial differential equations but we show that the so called Galerkin approximation can explain most of the system characteristics mapping it on the dynamics of few coupled oscillator modes. The main goal of present study is to investigate various routes to chaos in our non-hermitian system and to show the correspondence between the continuous operator problem and its discrete representation.